Lorne A. Richmond

The moving party brought a motion for leave to appeal an earlier order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and awarded costs of $5,000 to each of the two responding party groups.

The plaintiff, EllisDon Residential Inc., sought an injunction against Limen Group Const. (2019) Ltd. to resume work and against Defendant Unions for inducing breach of contract and interfering with economic relations.

The defendants argued the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) had exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute.

The court applied the Weber test, finding the essential character of the dispute related to labour relations and the interpretation of collective agreements, falling within the OLRB's exclusive jurisdiction.

The court dismissed the injunction motion and stayed the action, deferring to the OLRB.

The plaintiff construction manager sought an urgent hearing for an injunction to prevent the defendant union from allegedly intimidating a masonry contractor's employees into refusing to work.

The developer, Westbank, sought and was granted intervenor status.

The court declined to schedule the injunction motion on an urgent basis, finding that the delay in bringing the action was strategic and the alleged urgency was self-induced.

The parties were directed to schedule a regular motion date.

The applicant sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision that assigned scaffolding tending work to the Labourers rather than the Carpenters.

The applicant argued the Board unreasonably failed to apply the 'specialty scaffolding contractor' exception from its past jurisprudence.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the Board's decision was reasonable, as the Board had considered the past jurisprudence but concluded the exception did not apply on the facts of this case, given the nature of the work and the overwhelming area practice at the Bruce Power site.

The applicants sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision that denied their successor rights application following the merger of two construction companies.

The Board had awarded bargaining rights for formwork to the Carpenters' Union to avoid jurisdictional conflict, as the merged entity intermingled employees.

The Divisional Court applied the reasonableness standard of review and dismissed the application, finding the Board's decision to avoid jurisdictional conflict under section 69(6)(c) of the Labour Relations Act was justified, transparent, and intelligible.

Following an order to merge two local unions into a larger local, the former locals attempted to amend their trust and building corporation documents to distribute assets pro rata to their members rather than transferring them to the merged local.

The court found these actions were taken without authorization, violated the union's constitution, and constituted a breach of fiduciary duty by the trustees and directors.

The court declared the amendments null and void, imposed a constructive trust, and ordered the assets transferred to the merged local.

The applicant sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision granting union certification for employees working on a federal nuclear waste remediation project.

The applicant argued that its labour relations were subject to federal jurisdiction because the project involved nuclear substances.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the applicant was a large construction company performing a temporary contract and was not a federal undertaking itself, nor was it sufficiently integrated into the federal undertaking to trigger derivative federal jurisdiction.

A dissenting judge would have found derivative federal jurisdiction based on the federal regulatory regime governing nuclear substances.

The applicants sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) decision certifying a bargaining unit for construction labourers.

The applicants argued the OLRB erred by excluding post-application date evidence regarding the composition of the bargaining unit and by finding that the two individuals working on the application date were their employees.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the OLRB reasonably applied the statutory framework and its established policy of determining bargaining rights based on the date of application, and reasonably concluded the individuals were employees of the applicants.

The applicant, a provincially incorporated company that installs and maintains fibre optic cable for telecommunications networks, sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision certifying its bargaining unit under provincial law.

The applicant argued its operations were vital, essential, or integral to federally regulated telecommunications companies and thus subject to federal jurisdiction.

The Divisional Court agreed, finding the applicant's work was highly integrated with and integral to the ongoing operations of federal telecommunications undertakings.

The application for judicial review was allowed and the OLRB decision was quashed.

The applicants sought to stay a decision of the Ontario Labour Relations Board pending judicial review.

The Board had certified the respondent union, finding the applicants were the true employer of construction labourers on the application date, and had refused to admit post-application evidence regarding the workers' roles.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for a stay, holding that the 'strong prima facie case' test applied and that the applicants failed to meet this threshold, as the Board's refusal to admit the evidence was a valid exercise of its statutory discretion rather than a denial of natural justice.

The applicants, trustees of multi-employer pension plans, sought judicial review of a decision by the Information and Privacy Commissioner ordering the disclosure of confidential actuarial valuation reports to a representative of a rival union.

The applicants argued that disclosure would cause harm during the construction industry's 'raiding season'.

The Divisional Court allowed the application and set aside the commissioner's order, finding that the commissioner applied an overly burdensome standard of proof and an overly stringent test for causation of harm under s. 17(1) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The court held that the applicants only needed to establish a reasonable expectation of probable harm, which was met given the highly competitive context of union raiding.

The appellant, a construction worker, was expelled from his union local for violating its dual union policy by maintaining membership in a rival union.

Upon expulsion, his coverage under the union's benefit plan was terminated, despite having a positive balance in his notional 'dollar bank account' used to track employer contributions.

The appellant sought an order permitting him to continue making claims against the benefit plan or a cash payment of his notional balance.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the appellant ceased to be a beneficiary of the trust upon his expulsion and had no beneficial interest in the funds.

The court also held that the union officials did not breach their fiduciary duties as trustees by adopting and enforcing the dual union policy, as no conflict of interest existed in this context.

The appellants, unionized masonry contractors, appealed an order staying their action against the respondents and denying injunctive relief.

The appellants sought to challenge the legality of a Memorandum of Agreement and collective agreements that prohibited independent contractor arrangements with individual bricklayers.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the motion judge that the essential character of the dispute fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ontario Labour Relations Board and that the appellants had avenues within the labour relations regime to challenge the agreements.

Following a motion in which the defendants successfully obtained a stay of the civil action pending determination by the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the court addressed the issue of costs.

The moving parties sought substantial or partial indemnity costs, arguing they were entirely successful and had proceeded on an expedited timeline at the insistence of the responding parties.

The responding parties argued the amounts claimed exceeded reasonable expectations and that substantial indemnity costs were inappropriate because the motion concerned jurisdiction and did not determine substantive rights.

Applying the principles under s.131(1) of the Courts of Justice Act and Rule 57.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court held that successful parties are generally entitled to costs but that the amount must be fair and reasonable.

Partial indemnity costs were awarded to each group of moving parties.

Unionized masonry contractors commenced a civil action alleging that employer associations and construction unions conspired to prevent them from using independent operator payment arrangements with bricklayers through amendments to provincial collective agreements.

The plaintiffs sought declarations that the collective agreements and memorandum of agreement were unlawful, injunctive relief, and damages for economic torts.

The defendants moved to dismiss or stay the action on the basis that the dispute fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

Applying the framework from Weber v. Ontario Hydro, the court held that the essential character of the dispute concerned labour relations issues including the validity and scope of collective agreements and the relationship between employers and unionized workers.

Because those matters fall within the OLRB’s exclusive jurisdiction under the Labour Relations Act, the court stayed the action and declined to consider the requested injunctive relief.

The applicant union sought judicial review of two Ontario Labour Relations Board decisions that allowed a competing union's certification application to proceed despite being filed early.

The applicant argued the Board lacked jurisdiction to alter absolute statutory time limits.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the issue was not one of true jurisdiction but of statutory interpretation within the Board's core expertise.

Applying a reasonableness standard, the Court held the Board's exercise of discretion under s. 111(3) of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 was justified, transparent, and intelligible given the unique factual matrix.

The applicant employer sought judicial review of a preliminary decision by the Ontario Labour Relations Board finding that the union's certification application fell within provincial jurisdiction.

The respondent union argued the application was premature because the employer had other non-constitutional grounds for opposing certification that had not yet been decided.

The Divisional Court agreed, holding that absent exceptional circumstances, proceedings before administrative tribunals should not be fragmented.

Finding no exceptional circumstances, the court quashed the application as premature.

The applicant employer sought judicial review of two Ontario Labour Relations Board decisions granting union certification in the construction industry.

The employer argued the Board erred by accepting a union membership card from an employee who worked on the application date but signed the card later that day after being laid off.

The Divisional Court held that the standard of review was reasonableness.

The Court found the Board's long-standing practice of not parsing the date of application into units of time of less than a day was consistent with the Labour Relations Act and its purposes.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.

The Union sought interim relief to compel the Employer to provide Crown counsel with information that an inspector's discharge was being challenged at arbitration, in the context of a McNeil disclosure letter.

The Board dismissed the application, finding that the relief sought had essentially been obtained because the inspector's views, including the fact that his discharge was proceeding to arbitration, had already been put before the Crown.

The unions sought specific orders requiring the employer to immediately commence harmonization of security checks in legacy ministries in accordance with the March 2005 Policy and Guidelines.

The employer had recently provided a new draft Employment Screening Checks Policy and argued that the requested orders would be premature and could conflict with Cabinet's statutory discretion.

The Grievance Settlement Board declined to issue the requested orders, finding that the parties were best served by deferring consideration to allow them to discuss the new draft policy and attempt to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution.

The Board remained seized of the matter.